How Randy loved the cupola! In it she seemed to be detached from the house, and the world, floating aloft on a sea of branches. An army cot, an old rocking chair, and an empty toy chest were all the furniture it contained. Someday she planned to paint the ceiling: blue, with gold stars on it, whole constellations, and a section of the Milky Way. She would have to lie on her back on a scaffolding to paint it, the way Father told her Michelangelo had lain on his back to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Probably she would never get around to doing it, but it was an inspiring thought.
Today she was standing at her own west window watching the road. Ever since lunch she had been standing there, for this was the day when their dear friend Mrs. Oliphant was to arrive in the antique station wagon which she always called the Motor, with a capital M.
The children knew and were fond of the Motor (though it was a difficult car to love), for they had spent the previous summer at Mrs. Oliphant’s house by the sea, and had ridden in it often. It was a tall, narrow vehicle fitted with regular four-paned windows that made it look like a greenhouse on wheels, and was further distinguished by a small length of pipe sticking up from the roof chimney-wise to release the evil fumes of the exhaust.
Randy remained at her post like Sister Anne, and at four o’clock was rewarded by being the first to see the Motor rattling conservatively down the drive. It would not be hurried; it was like a self-willed old mule. Nothing in creation could make it alter its pace.
“Here she comes, kids!” shouted Randy, flinging herself recklessly down the ladder steps that led to the Office. The answering thunder of descending footsteps and shouts of joy reached her from the hall stairs. Father burst out of his study; Cuffy burst out of the kitchen; the front door was hurled open and left that way. The station wagon grumbled haughtily to a stop. Mrs. Oliphant emerged and was engulfed by enthusiastic Melendy children.
She was an old, lively lady: tall, dark-browed, and adorned with many furs, many necklaces, and brooches. The whole family loved Mrs. Oliphant. She was kind, and funny, and original: she carried with her the memory of a long life starred with adventures, and you had the feeling that, old though she was, still more adventures lay ahead of her.
“Are you tired, Mrs. O?” said Father. He always called her Mrs. O.
“Not so tired as the Motor,” replied Mrs. Oliphant, looking solicitously at the station wagon. “Now that I’ve given it to you, I don’t think it’s going to last very long. You must use it carefully; after all, it’s very old. It may give up the ghost at any minute.”
The children stared at the car with the respect due to an elder.
“But in case it does give up the ghost,” Mrs. Oliphant said frivolously, “I have supplied the children with other means of locomotion. It would be dreadful if they were forced to miss a single minute more of school. Look in the back of the Motor.”
Oliver got there first. He opened the rear door and leaned in.
“Oh, boy,” he said quietly. “Two-wheelers. Four of them. Oh, boy.”
Rush and Mona and Randy pushed against him, peering into the station wagon. It was true.
“Bicycles!” shouted Randy rather obviously.
“How absolutely di-vine!” said Mona. Next to “revolting” it was her favorite word.
All Rush could think of to say was “Gosh!” He searched around in his mind for something more eloquent, and added “Gee!”
“Mrs. O, you shouldn’t have!” objected Father. “It’s too much.”
But she just waved him away. “You and Cuffy will have to walk, I’m afraid. But that will be good for your figures.”
She put her arm through Father’s and looked up at the house.
“Well, Martin,” she said to Mr. Melendy, “it looks strong and comfortable, but rather broad-shouldered for its height, don’t you think?”
“That’s why it’s called the Four-Story Mistake,” Rush told her.
“The what?” Mrs. Oliphant stopped walking and stared at him.
“That’s its name,” Rush told her, and the whole thing had to be explained again.
“It’s a nice story, and a nice name,” Mrs. Oliphant decided. “A much better name for a house than the usual kind like Hillcrest, or Bayview, or Casa Loma, or Shangri-La!” She began to laugh as she looked at Oliver. During the whole conversation, as they moved toward the house, he had been walking backward in front of her. Walking is not the word, however. He was hopping, fidgeting, and jumping from one foot to the other, and staring into her face with an expression of agonized pleading.
“What’s the matter, Oliver?” said the old lady.
“Please, Mrs. Ollerphant, could we practice now? On the two-wheelers?” he begged.
“By all means,” she agreed. “You children stay outside and practice, and we will go indoors far away from the windows, where it’s safe. Remember I am not to be held responsible for any fractures or concussions!”
Rush and Mona had ridden before. In no time at all, after a few preliminary lurchings, they were speeding showily around the circle in the drive, zigzagging across the lawn between the trees, and coasting down the side of the hill.
Randy had a hard time learning. Her bicycle behaved as though it had a life of its own, doing everything to be rid of her. It bucked like a bronco, veered captiously in all the wrong directions, flung itself at trees and walls, and fell on its side in repeated swoons. Randy fell with it every time. At the end of a half hour’s patient struggle, her shins were black and blue, her knee was scraped, and she was close to tears. Rush, swooping expertly by, saw her fall for the seventeenth time and took pity on her.
“Look, Ran,” he said, “you get on and I’ll hold the bike for you. I won’t let you fall. Now, push down with your right foot, now with your left. That’s it. You’ll have it soon.”
And thanks to Rush’s help she did have it soon. In a very short time she found herself sailing deliriously along the drive, under her own steam. The wind whistled against her cheek, her battered knees pumped up and down, and the bicycle, its spirit almost broken, carried her smoothly; turning when she wished it to turn, stopping when she wished it to stop. I can do anything! Randy’s thoughts were singing victoriously. If I can learn to ride a bicycle I can do anything! Learn to fly an airplane, or dance like Baronova, or draw like Botticelli. Drunk with success she tried riding without hands, the way Rush did, and immediately fell off.
Oliver fell a lot, too. But he had taken his little bicycle to the top of a small rise and wobbled down it over and over again until finally he mastered the idea of balancing himself. He was systematic and determined, and learned much faster than Randy. The only trouble was that his legs were so short he couldn’t dismount properly; so he developed his own method: while the bicycle was still going he would leap clear of it, allowing it to crash to the earth, wheels still spinning. The method wasn’t very good (especially for the bicycle) but the best he could manage at the moment.
“You’re doing swell now, Ran,” Rush called. “How about going for a real ride?”
Oliver wisely preferred to stay at home and practice, but the rest of them walked their bicycles up the drive to the top of the hill, then they got on again and started on a voyage of discovery. Randy fell off twice, once when a squirrel ran across the road and once when she came to the stone gate, but as soon as she was out on the concrete highway she was able to manage better. The road under her wheels felt smooth as satin: She was flying, skimming effortlessly like a swallow near the earth. She kept her eyes fixed sternly on the road and stayed close to the right side. Mona and Rush grew small in the distance ahead of her.
“Hey, wait for me!” called Randy, but the words were blown away from her. Half elated, half afraid, she spun along the highway by herself. She didn’t dare look at the cars that passed her: whisht, whisht, they went in a speedy gasp, leaving a wake of wind behind them. Fences flew by her, and houses, and cows, and trees, but she didn’t see any of them. The road, the bicycle, the wind, were drawing her along faster and faster, and she had the feeling that she would never be able to stop. Ahead of her Mona and Rush swerved to the right and after a little while, when Randy got there, she swerved too.
And then her heart seemed to freeze in her chest: hard and cold as a snowball.
The long main street of Carthage sloped steeply away below her. She saw the houses and stores on each side, and the people and the cars, and the steeple on the church at the foot of the hill. Where, oh, where were Rush and Mona? Save me, save me, prayed Randy as the bicycle gathered speed. She couldn’t remember how to stop or put on the brake: she just held on. In a sort of dreadful calm she rocketed down the hill expecting to die. Clear and sharp she saw an old lady and some chickens run across the street to get out of her way: she saw the Carthage traffic cop staring at her with his mouth open. He went by in a flash. She saw the broad blue back of a parked bus in front of her growing larger and larger, and more and more convincing like a close-up in the movies. Save me, murmured Randy once again before her front wheel met the back of the bus, and she flew over the handlebars head on into the license plate.
Everything was velvet-black, and deep, and still.
When she opened her eyes she was lying comfortably in the gutter looking up into the red face of the bus driver. He had his cap on the back of his head, and a pencil behind one ear, she noticed. There were a lot of other people around, too, all looking interested and solemn.
“You all right, kid?” said the bus driver. “Hurt anyplace?”
“My head hurts, kind of,” Randy replied dreamily. Something warm and wet ran down her cheek.
“The victim must be kept lying down,” said a lady with glasses. “That’s what my first-aid book says. The victim must be kept lying down while someone calls a doctor.”
Randy sprang to her feet. “My bike!” she cried. “Is my bike all right?”
“The victim don’t want to lay down,” cackled an old man in the crowd. Everybody laughed except the lady with glasses.
“But my new bike!” wailed Randy.
“Your bike’s okay,” said the traffic cop, who had just arrived. “But you’ve got a bad cut on your forehead. My house’s right across the street. You come on with me, and let my wife fix you up.” He gave her his handkerchief to hold against her forehead and led her across the street, supporting her with his arm. Randy felt proud and delicate; a sort of heroine; the victim of an accident!
“Poor little thing,” someone said.
“My, ain’t she brave!” said someone else.
Now that she knew her bike was safe, Randy enjoyed it all very much.
“Hey, Ran, are you okay?” Rush came riding up, looking scared. Behind him she saw Mona’s pale face.
“I guess I am,” Randy replied in a weak voice, leaning against the traffic cop. Then she straightened up. “I lost consciousness!” she added briskly.
“You just set out here on the porch a minute,” the traffic cop told Rush and Mona. “She’ll be all right in a jiffy.” As the door closed, Randy could hear Rush saying to someone, “Yes, she’s my sister. Never rode a bicycle before today.” He sounded very important.
The name of the traffic cop was Mr. Wheelwright (which Randy thought was a good name for him) and his wife, Mrs. Wheelwright, was a nice fat lady with a kind heart who took Randy under her wing with the greatest pleasure.
“Well, for pity’s sake,” she kept clucking. “Why, you poor little mite. Why, you poor little mite.”
The Wheelwrights’ house was very interesting, though rather dim because all the windows were smothered under a profusion of potted plants. There were red geraniums, and fuchsias whose blossoms hung from their stems like costly earrings, and great overgrown begonias, and calceolarias all covered with little speckled calico pocketbooks. There were ivies, too, and rubber plants, and lots of others that Randy couldn’t name, all growing furiously like plants in an African jungle. Randy secretly wondered how they ever opened the windows in this house. Maybe they just didn’t bother.
Besides the plants there seemed to be a great many animals: dogs and cats, and cages and cages of birds: canaries and lovebirds, chattering and singing beside the green windows. And when they went into the bathroom upstairs, where Mrs. Wheelwright bathed Randy’s cut (quite a good cut, deep and long and bloody), Randy couldn’t believe her eyes. There was an alligator in the bathtub!
“My goodness” was all she could say. The alligator was about two feet long and lay half out of the water on a soapstone block, with a Mona Lisa smile on his face.
Randy was so fascinated she hardly noticed the iodine biting into her wound.
“Ouch,” she said absently. “But where did you get him, Mrs. Wheelwright?”
“My sister, Ethelda, down in Florida sent him to us for a joke more’n twelve years ago. Ed, that’s Mr. Wheelwright, figured the creature would die pretty soon; they usually do up here, you know. We sort of counted on it.”
She put a gauze dressing on the cut and plastered it down with adhesive tape.
“Well, but he didn’t die,” she continued. “We fed him real good, and took care of him because after all we’ve got kinda soft hearts, and first thing you know he’s feeling pert as a kitten, and he’s got that great big grin on his face.”
She sighed as she closed the door of the medicine chest.
“In summer Ed puts him out in a tank in the yard. But in winter, now that he’s getting s’big, we just have to keep him in the bathtub. It makes it awful inconvenient: we have to take our baths in the kitchen, just like there wasn’t no modern conveniences in the place.”
“What’s his name?” asked Randy.
“We call him Crusty,” replied Mrs. Wheelwright. She sighed again. “The Lord knows what we’ll do with him when he outgrows the bathtub. Well, time to worry about it later. Now, honey, you come on downstairs and lay on the davenport for a while, and I’ll find you a little bite to strengthen you. You can meet the rest of the family, too.”
Were there other people in the house? Randy had heard no voices. But the rest of the family turned out to be the animals: a very fat old dog, her daughter and grandson; three big grey Maltese cats, all brothers; two lovebirds, man and wife, and five canaries whose relationships were not explained.
The living room was full of things: tables, and lots of chairs, all with crocheted antimacassars; pictures and pennants and fans on the wall; a big melodeon at one end of the room with very old sheet music on it; and in the wide doorway there were portieres all made of beads which rattled like rain on a tin roof when Mrs. Wheelwright brushed against them. The place was so full of animals and plants and furniture that Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright just walked around their house on little paths. It was rather a stuffy, crowded way to live, Randy thought, but very interesting and never lonesome. She lay quiet on the big, full-bodied couch that was covered with a stiff, stinging plush, like nettles. Mrs. Wheelwright brought her a frosted doughnut and a glass of root beer. The canaries sang madly, and the lovebirds screamed at each other in the customary way of lovebirds. One of the cats sat on the arm of the couch with his tail curled around his paws, and the oldest, fattest dog kept trying to sit up and beg, and falling over because of too much fat.
“That’s Teeny,” Mrs. Wheelwright said proudly. “She’s fourteen years old.”
“My sister Mona is almost fourteen, too,” Randy remarked. “But not so fat for her size.”
“My lands!” cried Mrs. Wheelwright in consternation. “Your brother and sister have been waiting outside all this time! They’d probably like some doughnuts, too.” Deftly she made her way between tables and chairs and over cats and dogs to the front door.
Rush and Mona came in looking hungry, and sat down behaving like company.
“Are you really all right, Ran, darling?” inquired Mona as Mrs. Wheelwright bustled into the kitchen, leaving the bead portieres rattling.
“I’m fine,” Randy said. “I like this place.”
Mrs. Wheelwright returned with more doughnuts and root beer.
“Your little sister got a pretty bad cut,” she told Rush and Mona.
“Oh, she’s always doing something,” Rush said between mouthfuls, and during them. Randy blushed modestly. “She broke her collarbone when she was four, and she knocked out two front baby teeth when she fell off the rocking horse the same year. And then when she was six she got stuck in a revolving door and last year she almost got suffocated with coal gas, and—”
“And she fell out of a boat in Central Park in New York City, too,” added Mona. “Nobody ever does that.”
“Oh, it wasn’t anything,” said Randy, feeling pleased.
“Yes, and she set the house on fire once by accident,” continued Rush. “And she was the only one of our family that got mumps the time we had mumps at school.”
“Well!” said Mrs. Wheelwright. “Things just seem to happen to you, don’t they, honey?”
Then Mr. Wheelwright came in and offered to drive Randy home in the next-door neighbor’s pickup truck. But no; Randy wanted to ride her bike.
“That’s right,” said Rush approvingly. “After a crash they always make aviators fly again, so they won’t lose their nerve.”
“Only don’t get too far ahead of me,” begged Randy.
Before she left she thanked Mrs. Wheelwright. “Can I come and see you sometimes?” she asked.
“You come whenever you want to, honey,” Mrs. Wheelwright said. “Maybe you’d like to come on Thursdays when I let the birds fly around the house. Or maybe you’d like to come on Saturdays when I bake cookies.”
“Maybe I’d like to come both times,” Randy suggested greedily, and Mrs. Wheelwright seemed to think that was a good idea.
Randy enjoyed the ride home. Her bicycle appeared to be repentant of its past actions and took her docilely in at the gate, down the hill, and along the drive without a single fall.
“My lands!” cried Cuffy when she saw her. “You look like the Spirit of ’76!”
“The Carthage traffic cop has an alligator in his bathtub!” Randy told her.
“The what!” Cuffy looked startled. “You sure your head feels all right?”
But Oliver, who was getting ready for his bath, said gloomily, “A bathtub’s a good place for an alligator. Not for a boy like me. Alligators like water.”
That night Randy had her supper in bed: chicken broth, and toast, and lemon jelly. Just like a real invalid. And afterward everyone came up to see her. Mrs. Oliphant and Father made her promise to ride her bike only on the home grounds until she became more expert.
Before she turned out the light, Randy took inventory of her wounds. There were four dark bruises and a skinned knee on her right leg; five dark bruises and a scratched shin on her left. She also had a swollen wrist and a scraped elbow. But the crowning glory, the best wound, the one she valued above all others, was the deep cut on her forehead. Maybe it will leave a scar, she thought hopefully. Oh, if it only would: a distinguished little white scar that she could point to and say casually, “This? Oh, I got this the time I ran into the back of the bus.”
It had been a good day, a wonderful day. She had a new bicycle, she had made new friends, and probably she was going to have a scar.